In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.
-John 1:1-3

Let it first be understood that this is a completely different, but not unrelated question from “Does God sin?”. To answer either question, we first need to define our terms. Sin is the valuation or desire for something less than good. To sin against another person is to have something less than their best interest in mind. Thus, if God is that highest good, sin in its most general form is to value anything more highly than God. This is what Jesus meant when He described Himself as the fulfillment of the law (Matthew 5:17): the law is an approximation, love is the form. The law is 3.14, love is π. The law is a riemann sum, love is an integral. The law is a series of commands that approximate how the regenerate person acts, where love is what actually produces it in fullest form.

So what is love (cue Haddaway)? Love is the linking of one’s own interest to another’s interest. That is, to rejoice with another’s good and mourn with their bad, no matter its relevance to you. In this way, sin is the opposite of love – a breaking of the principle of the law, which is love. This is why Jesus said the greatest commandment is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind”, and to “Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:37-40). Thus it is the greatest sin not to value God as the highest good – indeed, we have seen that all sin stems from the valuation of something besides God.

So if sin stems from the valuation of something higher than God, we can safely say that God cannot sin. This takes the sting out of any claim of sin ultimately stemming from God, but the issue ought nevertheless to be explored. Such an argument can be made very simply: where else would it have come from? It has been shown that God does not delegate His attributes: without delegated sovereignty, it is futile to try to vindicate God from imagined wrongdoing by laundering the creation of sin through the free will of man.

So how can we say both that God created sin, but God does not sin?

Ultimately the answer to this question lies in the question “What is the purpose of sin?”. Sin and the results thereof are very often linked with senselessness – the question “Why?” is the most common response to suffering. If sin and suffering were indeed completely senseless, then we would do well to try to vindicate God from its creation.

But sin is not senseless. We see throughout the Bible that God directs sin and evil intent towards a higher good. From the salvation from famine of the house of Jacob due to the selling of Joseph into slavery years earlier (Genesis 50:20), to the exodus from Egypt due to the hardening of Pharoah’s heart (Exodus 4:21), to godless armies being raised up to punish Israel (Isaiah 10:5-7), God directs and controls sin to accomplish a greater purpose – namely His own glory. God is glorified in the display of all of His attributes, which require the presence of sin both to condemn and from which to redeem.

Knowing that even sin works for the highest good – a good higher than even that which could exist without sin – it can be none other than God orchestrating each event towards this final goal, and being completely just in doing so. I am much more assured in faith knowing that even sin is in the hands of the sovereign Lord, rather than trying to vindicate Him by pretending it is indeed senseless and sourceless. God thus becomes all the more glorious – not a bit of suffering is wasted, and we know that even as bad as the world may seem at times, the final outcome is completely assured.